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gave a smile but it didn’t reach his eyes.
    â€˜To do what?’
    â€˜To go after the CP team.’
    Harry digested that for a few moments, trying to picture the possibilities. It didn’t seem credible. Dramatic as hell, yes. But one man? ‘Who is he?’
    â€˜We don’t know. An Afghan. That’s all we have. No name, no description.’
    â€˜An Afghan. You’re saying this is terrorist-related?’
    Deane lifted his shoulders. ‘Looks that way to me. Who else would benefit by hitting the UN?’
    â€˜And does your intel say what he’s going to do?’
    â€˜Yes. He’s going to find the men who were in the compound that night. And he’s going to kill them. All of them.’
    In Paris, Kassim made his way to the Gare du Nord. He felt bone-tired, as if he had run into a wall. He’d been stunned by seeing the Frenchman, Orti, enter the café, and for a moment had nearly allowed his caution to overcome him. But then reason took control, and he realized that it was natural for the man to use the café, being in the same street.
    In the end, it had worked to his advantage. It demonstrated that the photo in the pocket binder was good, which boded well for the rest. Satisfied that he was looking at the right man, he’d waited for the Frenchman to take his first mouthful of coffee, then got up and left, to find a quiet doorway further along the street.
    This one had gone well. Yet he felt a strange sense of disappointment. Something told him that Orti had not understood what was happening, even at the end. The eyes had been too clear to be mistaken. He had not known why Kassim was there.
    He bought a ticket for Brussels, the next stage of his journey, and found a seat at the rear of a carriage and sat down, tucking his rucksack under his legs. He did not trust to leaving the bag out of his reach for a second. The Makarov was in the bottom, unused, wrapped in a towel with the hunting knife. There had been no sense in leaving them behind, as it saved him acquiring others later. He checked the right sleeve of his jacket, where he had earlier noticed small spots of blood. He had scrubbed at them with a damp cloth before leaving Orti’s apartment, and the brisk walk to the station had helped the material to dry. Now the stains were almost invisible.
    He stared through the window at the empty tracks, running over the killing in a series of flickering snapshots: going through the door, pushing Orti in front of him and trussing him like a goat, ready for the kill. The shock of surprise had generated a rush of adrenalin, helping him overcome the soldier in the first few seconds. It was a tactic learned in the training camps, then at first hand in various fields of combat.
    Yet he had no sense of pleasure at taking the man’s life. It had been a task accomplished, nothing more.
    Most of Kassim’s killing had been done on the hilly battlefields of Afghanistan, where personal contact was rare and death was meted out at a distance. Occasionally he had used the night to cloak his attacks, overcoming guards with a knife to ensure silence. But always he had managed to move on, brushing aside the dreams that later came to haunt him by telling himself there had been no other way.
    This time, though, had been different. He had used Orti’s own blade, seen his eyes up close; had felt the other’s body warmth, sensed his final breath on his cheek; seen the flicker of something desperate in Orti’s face in the moments before he went.
    But that wasn’t all. There had been a need to mark the killing for those who would understand. His trainers had been emphatic about that. He had closed his mind to what had followed, like a surgeon from his patient, and with a few swift cuts of the knife, his task was complete.
    As the train slid almost noiselessly out of the station, Kassim felt relieved. He was not clear yet, but every second took him beyond the reach of